HHS to expand ‘conscience' protections for health providers

The Trump administration on Thursday will announce an overhaul the HHS civil rights office as part of a broader plan to protect health workers who don't want to perform abortions, treat transgender patients seeking to transition or provide other services for which they have religious or moral objections.

Under a proposed rule - which has been closely guarded at HHS and is now under review by the White House - the civil rights office would be empowered to further shield these workers and punish organizations that don't allow them to express their religious and moral objections, according to sources on and off the Hill. That would be a significant shift for the office, which currently focuses on enforcing federal civil rights and health care privacy laws.

I heard this this morning on NPR on my way to work. How awful. This administration seems bound and determined to roll back every advance made over the last fifty years, whether it's civil/human rights, environmental protections, labor laws, you name it ...

I heard this this morning on NPR on my way to work. How awful. This administration seems bound and determined to roll back every advance made over the last fifty years, whether it's civil/human rights, environmental protections, labor laws, you name it ...

Pretty disgusting actually, as it seems the HHS is going to devote a large amount of resources to make the Trump/GOP point. This includes going back and looking over complaints filed by healthcare workers perhaps far back as during the Obama administration.

This new rule/division will cover abortion, all and sundry LGBT medical services, assisted suicide and pretty much anything else any religious person is bothered by. This is not going to end well, you mark my words.

Places HHS are likely to go after will be those from nurses/doctors/healthcare workers in states/local areas with vast and inclusive anti-discrimination protections. New York, California, Washington, Massachusetts.

Jan 18

Great! I would love to be able to refuse care to anyone who is a neo-Nazi or a pedophile or a homophobe.

(It should be patently obvious, but in case it is not, that was sarcasm.)

Jan 19

This is sad. Being able to pick and choose who you treat and what you treat shouldn't be. If you have a problem with certain populations of people(transgender for example) or have a problem with certain medical procedures(abortion for example) then you shouldn't be working in the part of healthcare that would expose you to the population of people you refuse to treat. If you have a problem with abortion obviously don't work GYN. But to put a patient at risk by refusing to assist in a procedure because you find their choices morally reprehensible makes you the morally reprehensible one.

But to put a patient at risk by refusing to assist in a procedure because you find their choices morally reprehensible makes you the morally reprehensible one.

This is not just about people's "choices," but also about who they are, which is the textbook definition of bigotry. I don't see how it can be reasonable to claim a right to refuse to treat gay or transgender individuals, I'm not talking about providing a specific procedure to which you object, but simply to provide treatment for whatever kind of ordinary health problems they have, simply because you object to them as people for "religious" reasons.